


Once Upon A Time AU Drabble Collection

by Steerpike13713



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Gen, Gender or Sex Swap, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:50:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10099349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steerpike13713/pseuds/Steerpike13713
Summary: All my Once Upon a Time AUs not developed enough to warrant their own stories. Mostly Rumbelle, some other pairings, taken from my tumblr and polished up a bit.





	1. Mary Gold

At this rate, it was starting to look as if Emma’s best chance at finding somewhere to stay in Storybrooke would be to knock on the convent doors and asking if it was too late to take Holy Orders. Which…no. No. Not doing that, because religion had never been Emma’s style, and if she had to live in an institution with strict rules and a bunch of other women she hardly knew, without even any possibility of lesbianism to liven things up, she’d probably go stark raving mad and then where would Henry be, stuck in that house with a woman who was willing to seriously traumatise her own son just to prove a point.

She was just starting to wonder, rather desperately, how seriously Graham really took those vagrancy laws, when she noticed Henry’s teacher, what was her name…Mary, that was it, Mary Gold…standing there, looking worried, toying nervously with the sleeve of her black cardigan. Black hadn’t been a good choice for her, it made her look washed-out and sickly, but at least now Emma really could see why Henry was so convinced she was Snow White.

“Any particular reason you’re staring at me?” she asked, trying to cover her own awkwardness.

Mrs Gold flinched, then smiled awkwardly. “Oh…no. I was just…uh…wondering if you were ok.”

“Oh,” Emma said, surprised. “In the world of tight spots I’ve been in, crashing in my car doesn’t even rank in the top ten.”

Mrs Gold looked horrified. “You’re sleeping here?” she asked, staring at the Bug as if it had personally offended her. Sheesh, it wasn’t as if they’d all married men who owned whole towns. Or…well, anyone at all, in Emma’s case, but looking at Mary’s husband, Emma felt she’d dodged a bullet on that one.

“’til I find a place,” she admitted brusquely. “Think Mr Gold might be able to help me with that?” It was a long shot, but Mary had seemed sympathetic enough before.

Mary – Emma was not sure when she’d started thinking of her as ‘Mary’ –  smiled. “You’ve decided to stay,” she said warmly. “For Henry!”

Emma frowned, and made to get up, “Yeah, I guess.” It was a cold night, and Mary wasn’t dressed for it, in her white sundress and light cardigan. “This town doesn’t seem to have many vacancies,” she admitted, kicking the car door shut behind her. “None, actually. Is that normal?”

Mary smiled impishly. “Must be the curse.”

Emma smiled back, though she didn’t want to talk about Henry’s theory right now, and especially not around the woman he was so convinced was her mother. “Why’re you out so late?” she asked casually. Gold had struck her as…well, as a rich, controlling, frightening guy. And she’d only met him that once, but it was difficult to miss the way people around here spoke about him. None of that added up to someone who’d be at all reasonable about his wife wandering around town in a short skirt after dark.

Mary shrugged, “Well, I’m a teacher, not a nun. I had a date.”

“I thought you were married,” Emma said, before she could think better of it. Mary stared at her, her purse slipping off her shoulder, unheeded.

“Who _to_?” she demanded, “I had enough trouble getting a date, with how scared everyone is of-”

Emma might, if she’d been younger and less self-possessed, have blushed. “I…uh…I met Mr Gold at Granny’s, my first night here,” she admitted, “I sort of assumed…”

“What- No! No! He’s…” Mary broke off, spluttering, looking so utterly revolted it was almost comical. “He’s my _father!_ ”

“Oh,” Emma said, embarrassed. “Uh…sorry? I just…didn’t think he was that old.”

“He’s fifty,” Mary said, in a voice that was still slightly squeaky, her cheeks burning red. She fiddled nervously with the strap of her bag. “That’s…part of why I was on a date with Doctor Whale. The whole town knows he’s a sleaze, but when everyone else is too scared of Dad to go near me….” She shrugged, and chewed on her lip for a moment before adding, a little shyly. “You know, if things get cramped…I do have a spare room.”

Emma opened her mouth to try and come up with a reason to refuse when the alternative was sleeping in the back of the Bug, but Mary sort of jumped on it before she could.

“Just- Just for a little while,” she said hastily, “I- I wouldn’t expect- Well…just for tonight, then? I can talk to Dad about any places he has…there’s bound to be somewhere, even if it isn’t in the paper.”

Emma considered refusing again, but there was something about the way Mary looked, as if she was fully expecting Emma to send her away with a flea in her ear, that reminded her uncomfortably of Henry. It was difficult to see why – Mr Gold owned the whole town, Mary couldn’t be that badly-off, and you’d think people would have more sense than piss off the guy who could evict them at the drop of the hat. But then, maybe that wasn’t the way things worked in Storybrooke. Why not? Nothing else in this town made any goddamn sense.

Mary’s place was a few streets over, a small loft apartment in what looked like an old warehouse with the fading paint still on the brickwork, and just stepping inside made Emma feel smaller and shabbier than ever. The place she’d been renting in Boston had come fully-furnished, and felt more like a hotel than a house, and a better hotel than Emma had any business being in, at that. This place was somebody’s actual _home_ , and Emma…well, she’d sworn years ago that she wouldn’t take charity, but Mary had managed to con her into it somehow, by acting like…like Emma was doing _her_ a favour by coming into her home and messing up her life.

“I- I don’t have many guests,” Mary was saying, a little stiffly, “Sorry about the mess.”

It didn’t look all that messy to Emma, but apparently standards were different here too. It looked…nice, sort of homey, lots of dark wood and rich colours, and it looked like somewhere that had been put together by a person just because they happened to like the look of it, and not by some developer or other trying to make quick-and-easy apartments for people who weren’t going to be there for long and who probably didn’t care what the place looked like so long as there was a shower and a bed big enough to stretch out on.

“It’s fine,” she mumbled, feeling even more awkward now. “So…this thing with Henry,” she asked, not quite able to restrain herself much longer. “Is it a- a recent thing?”

“No,” Mary replied, with a bitter little twist of the lip, “If it were…well, I wouldn’t have worried.” She toyed again with her strap of her purse as she put it aside. “I- I haven’t been teaching here long,” she admitted, “So I can’t say…”

Emma frowned, “Henry said you’d been here for years.”

Mary gave her a tired smile. “Feels that way, sometimes. But…” she twisted her hands together, as if not sure how much to say. “He’s…he’s never been able to make many friends – it’s not that he doesn’t want to, I don’t think,” she added, “If it were, I wouldn’t worry, but he’s always seemed a bit lonely.”

Emma scowled. “She didn’t even know about his theory until I told her about it,” she said sourly. “Though, considering he thinks she’s the Evil Queen, I can see why he wouldn’t want her knowing.”

Mary laughed softly, “Yes. I can’t quite understand it myself,” she admitted, “I mean, if he is having trouble in his relationship with her, I can understand casting her as a villain, but why make her my wicked stepmother? He was convinced I was Snow White almost before he was about her. I think it’s the hair.” She patted it nervously. True, it did make her look a bit like something out of the Disney cartoon, Emma thought, but it wasn’t as if that had played much in a role in Henry’s other casting choices.

“So, uh, how does your dad fit into that theory?” she asked slyly. It was a lot easier to laugh at Mr Gold like this, with the living proof that he was a real, flesh-and-blood _person_ underneath all those suits and that ridiculously menacing reputation right next to her.

Mary smiled again, a bit more widely. “I have no idea,” she admitted, “I mean, there are probably versions of the story where Snow’s father survives, but I can’t imagine him looking at Regina twice – they, uh, they don’t like each other very much.”

“Shocker,” Emma said flatly. Regina didn’t seem to make friends easily either, which would be all very well, if she didn’t seem to handle Henry the same way. That was the whole reason Emma had chosen to stay in Storybrooke, which was why she was here, in Mary’s apartment, instead of halfway back to Boston by now. “So…he’s been unhappy for a while, then?”

Mary put her head on one side. “I don’t know,” she said, “If you’d asked me a week or two ago, I’d have said no, only quiet, but now…” she shook her head, “I’ve never seen him as happy as he’s been since you arrived in town,” she said, with breath-taking sincerity, and Emma had to look away because how was she supposed to look that in the face and tell Mary outright that the only reason that was so was a theory she did not even believe in, and nothing to do with her at all?

“I…uh, I can pay rent?” she offered. “If you’re sure about me staying and nothing comes up…”

Mary shook her head, “No need,” she said, “I…I don’t pay rent on this place anyway. Perks of…”

“Having your dad for a landlord, right.” Emma stared around the place, a tight knot of resentment forming in the pit of her stomach. It wasn’t that Mary didn’t seem nice enough, because she was. That was half the problem. In Emma’s experience, sweet, spoilt rich girls only stayed nice until you did something that clashed with their ideas about how the world worked, and then things tended to get ugly. She’d met enough of the type in school to be pretty sure of that. “I…uh…I’m starting to owe you more than I’m really comfortable with, what with you not taking the repayment on the bail money,” she admitted.

Mary shrugged. “You don’t owe me anything,” she said, with another sad little smile. “And it…it might be nice. It gets a little lonely, what with…everything. Uh…sit down. I’ll make hot chocolate – or coffee, if you’d rather. I think I still have some…”

“Oh- Uh, chocolate’s fine.” This was, Emma felt with some horror, starting to turn into the sort of conversation that would end in her asking why it was Mary was doing this. Letting her into this lovely, lonely apartment, talking to her, saying she was glad Emma was a part of Henry’s life…everything she’d done since Emma had followed Madam Mayor into her classroom and then refused point-blank to leave town. “I…thanks, for all of this. You really didn’t need to-”

“It was my pleasure,” Mary replied from where she was standing by the stove, and sounded as if she really meant it, which was worse. “Is there…something you’d like to talk about?”

Emma shifted uncomfortably, wondering when she’d become so easy to read. “When you bailed me out…you said that you trusted me. That you were glad I was here. Why?”

How bad must things have been, a shameful part of her mind wondered, that even an ex-con who hadn’t been a part of Henry’s life since the day he was born started to look like a reasonable option?

Mary shrugged, and there was something evasive behind her smile. “I told you, I think you’re innocent.”

“Of breaking and entering? Or just in general?”

“Whichever makes you feel better,” Mary said, pouring out two mugs of chocolate, sprinkling them with cinnamon apparently automatically, and turning around to press one of them into Emma’s hands. “Sit down. I’m not going to do anything to you.”

“I…never said you were,” Emma said, accepting the cup without thinking.

Mary shrugged. “Then you’d be the first. People hear ‘Gold’ and…” she shrugged. “I’m used to it. And…I don’t want to speak ill of anyone, but I haven’t seen Regina so involved in his life as she’s been these last few days in the whole time I’ve known him.”

“So…what, you think having me around will get her to treat him like an actual _kid_ , and not-” Emma broke off, remembering the vicious satisfaction on Regina’s face after Henry had overheard them. She’d only known the kid for a matter of days and already she couldn’t imagine hurting him, just to prove a point.

“I think,” Mary said levelly, “That it’s high time Henry had someone in his corner who wasn’t too afraid of the Mayor to be useful.”

Emma frowned. “And you can’t do that.”

“Oh. No. _No_ , that woman scares me witless,” Mary’s eyes flicked downwards, “Besides…he was always a bit nervous of me, too, before he came up with this theory. I don’t know how long that will last, if…when he gets past it.”

Emma glanced down at her hot chocolate. She didn’t know what Henry would think of her if he wasn’t convinced she was some sort of magical saviour here to wave a wand and make it all alright again.

“Can…uh…can you tell me about him?” she asked. “He…he won’t talk to me about what things were like before I came here. I mean, he told me a little just after I arrived, but-”

Mary’s expression closed off. “If he doesn’t want to tell you, I hardly feel I have any right to,” she said carefully. “But...I see him alone a lot. At Granny’s, around town. You don’t see that so often these days. And even if I’m sure the mayor doesn’t think anyone would harm him, and I know she’s very busy…you’d think at least on the weekends…” Mary trailed off, looking nervous. “Like I said,” she repeated, “I- I know she’s busy, and I don’t want to insult anyone, but I’ve hardly seen him with her, and I don’t know how much of what he says is true.”

“And what does he say?” Emma asked.

“That he’s lonely, that she hardly notices him, that she’s busy…it was why I gave him the book in the first place, he seemed so alone. And so _hopeless_.”

Something twisted under Emma’s skin. She had known Henry was in a bad state – the kid was talking about fairy-tales as if they were real just to get away from his reality –  but that made it concrete.

“Better than I thought,” she said dazedly, “After what happened yesterday.”

Mary cocked her head to one side, and Emma slowly, haltingly poured out the whole thing – the visit to the mayor’s office, what she had said, what Henry had heard, and how the mayor had smiled afterwards, as if she had won some kind of game instead of sending her own son into a depressive tailspin that rivalled some of Emma’s bleaker moments over the years.

Mary listened, expressionless, and when Emma came to the end she nodded.

“It’s a good thing he has you, then,” she said, and stood. “I’ll make up the spare bed for you – finish your chocolate, before it gets cold.”


	2. Rumbelle M/M

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Benedict of Avonlea makes a deal.

The town of Avonlea was scarcely a day’s ride from the castle which bore its name and yet it still glowed redly on the horizon as Benedict and his men clattered, bone-weary and sick at heart, into the courtyard of his father’s castle at the foot of the Grey Mountains. Above them, looking down from the windows, he could see the faces of his father’s household, and wished he had better news to offer them. But there was none. Avonlea was lost, and the small column of refugees they had been able to save from its destruction would be, to his father, just a score more mouths to feed in a castle that could ill afford them.

He raked a hand through his curly hair and stared around unseeing at his men. Two dozen, just two dozen, of the close to ten score that had marched to bolster the defences at Avonlea. In the grand scale of the war, he knew, ten score was nothing, Avonlea was nothing. Just one more little town on the fringes of the Marchlands, except that this one happened to be his, and its starving, bleeding, dying people were his as well.

“Get some rest,” he said, trying desperately to sound at least hopeful, “I need to inform my father of what’s happened – Sergeant, get the injured to the castle healer as soon as you can. Tell him to spare no effort.”

It would do little good, he knew, there was not enough time left for that. By sundown, the ogres would have reached them, and then…this was no great fortress. No famous sieges had ever been conducted here, no armies had broken themselves upon its walls, no desperate handful of defenders had beaten back an army a thousand strong just on the strength of its defences. The ogres would cut through them like paper, adding more blood to the tide of it now engulfing the Marchlands. Still, they _had_ to try and cling onto hope for as long as they could, or what was the point of any of it?

“As you say, sir,” Sergeant Merric agreed, and laid a hand on Benedict’s shoulder. “You did all you could, lad. There’s no shame in that.”

Benedict drew in a breath and released it, unable to look the sergeant in the face. He had done as much as he could – awkward, gangling, bookish Benedict whose swordsmanship the sergeant had despaired of as a boy before the war came – but another man might have done more.

“Thank you, Merric,” he said, and forced a smile, “Get that arm seen to – it’d be a shame to die of gangrene before the ogres even get here.”

Merric managed a bark of mirthless laughter. “We both know they won’t take that long. Go, tell your father about this day’s work.”

Benedict nodded and, with one last look back at the courtyard, stepped through into the keep itself. He was met, almost immediately, by old Radegund, the head of the castle kitchens, who had scolded him a hundred times as a child and given him treats a hundred more. She looked drawn and sallow and unhealthy, the bones too clear beneath the skin of her face.

“Master Benedict! Sir Benedict, I should say. Oh, thank Reul Ghorm for your safe return!”

Benedict hugged her, quite heedless of noble reserve, and felt how thin she had become, her bones as fragile and as breakable as a bird’s. With food so scarce, he couldn’t help but feel guilty to pile yet another worry on her shoulders. “There are close to sixty people out there who need housed and fed,” he said when he drew back, “Men, women and children, and none of them have eaten today.”

“Sixty – oh!” Radegund’s eyes went wide in dismay. “Avonlea-”

Benedict nodded, unable to talk through the lump in his throat. He could not let himself think of the carnage he had seen there, the town green where the spring revels had been held churned with mud and littered with bodies, the river choked with the bodies of soldiers and townsfolk alike, dead and dying-

“I have to tell my father,” he said, and hated the edge of tears and desperation in his voice. He bit his lip, and glanced back at the door through to the courtyard. “We must either withdraw or prepare for a siege.”

It would not last long either way – ogres were swifter than men, and castle walls were no sure defence against them – but he couldn’t look Radegund in the eye and tell her that.

Radegund looked guilty. “There- there is another way,” she said, her eyes flicking nervously upwards, “Your father…well, he doesn’t know yet if it will work, but if it does...”

“If it does?” Benedict prompted.

“An end,” Radegund whispered. “To the war, to the ogres, to – _everything_!”

If Benedict had been holding anything, he would have dropped it. “An- he thinks he’s found a way to- I _have_ to speak with him!”

Radegund nodded, and stepped aside, and Benedict nearly raced along the corridor and up the stairs to the War Room. He passed any number of servants on his way up – both those who had been there since his own childhood, and the small entourage Gaston had brought with him when the battle lines had shifted. Benedict still didn’t know what to make of that – there was no place for such comforts at the front, and yet Gaston took them as his due. That, he supposed, was the difference between a mere knight’s son and the son of an earl, even a younger son like Gaston.

The guards outside the war room were both old men, missing fingers and in one case the whole lower half of his arm, but they nodded respectfully at Benedict as he reached them, and called out his name to the men within. He could hear the beam on the other side being drawn back, and then the doors opened to admit him.

Sir Maurice was standing at the war table when Benedict came in, and the look on his face was something all too close to despair.

“Benedict,” he said, nearly crushing Benedict in a hug despite his armour. “We’d given you up for dead – when we heard Avonlea had fallen, I thought-”

“Most of us are,” Benedict admitted, “Papa, I heard something about a plan – something that might end the war for good. Is it true?”

His father’s face crumpled. “For all the good it did us,” he said bitterly, exchanging a look with Gaston. “We meant to summon the Dark One. Rumpelstiltskin. But it has failed.”

“If only he had come,” Gaston said, presumably by way of agreement. He sounded wooden, almost bored.

Sir Maurice rounded on him. “Well, he didn’t, did he?” He turned away, towards the great seat, and collapsed into it. “Ogres are not men.”

“We have to do _something_!” Gaston said, uselessly, “We have to _stop_ them!”

“They are unstoppable.” Sir Maurice’s voice was so quiet it ought to have been close to a whisper, but it seemed to echo through the whole room.

Benedict swallowed. “We should at least try to get as many of our people clear as possible,” he said, his mind whirling through idea after useless idea. “The forests are still clear, and Sir Gilles’ castle is two days’ ride away. If enough fighting men can remain here to buy time-”

“The war will not be won by farmers and traders!” Gaston snapped, “It would only split our forces and waste more time. We ought to send all the men we can to the fighting to the east, if nothing here can be saved.”

Benedict glared at him. “These are my people’s lives we’re talking about – I can’t just leave them to be slaughtered!” _You told me we had a duty,_ he thought, glancing over at his father, sitting there looking as if the world had already come down around their ears. _Do you remember that?_ It had been the central tenet of his education – the official parts of it, anyway – and, he had thought, of his father’s rule.

“Could he be already on his way?” he asked, “How long since you summoned him?”

Sir Maurice shook his head. “Days, weeks,” he said, “We’ve heard nothing. He will not come. It’s too late, my boy. It’s just…” he choked on something like a sob. “Too late.”

The knock that came at the door then was loud as thunder. Every head in the room snapped around to stare at the door. Benedict’s heart was in his throat.

“It’s him,” he said, “It _has_ to be him.” Who else, after all, would the guards not have either announced or turned away? The guards...the gods alone knew what had become of them. He had heard stories before of men changed into snails or frogs or insects at the Dark One’s displeasure.

“How could he get past the walls?” his father growled, hauling himself to his feet and across to the double doors. “Open it!”

The two armoured guards on the inside – younger and stronger men than those outside – lifted the great beam and let the doors swing open, to reveal…nothing. Benedict stared at the empty corridor in disbelief. The guards outside were gone, the corridor was deserted. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

“Well, that was a bit of a let-down,” said an unfamiliar voice from behind them, and the whole group by the door wheeled around.

Benedict’s first impression of Rumpelstiltskin was of a slight man, several inches shorter than himself, with wild hair, a demon’s grin and skin that seemed to glimmer green-gold in the grey light coming through from outside. It was only that last detail that reminded him who it was they were really dealing with – the Dark One, the Spinner, the greatest sorcerer in the known world.

Gaston laid a hand on the hilt of his sword and made as if to step forward, only to look almost comically affronted when Benedict did so first.

“You got our message, then?” he said, almost shaking with relief. Surely, the Dark One’s power was enough to overcome ogres. He had done far greater things in his time, and there were tales held as blasphemy by the Order of the Reul Ghorm and its council of clerics that claimed it had been he and not the Blue Fairy who had put an end to the Ogre Wars of old.

“Indeed I did,” trilled the imp, “Something about, um… ‘Help! Help! We’re dying! Can you save us?’” He made an extravagant one-handed gesture, his claws gleaming dully and impossible to forget, and rose to his feet in one fluid movement to prowl closer. “And the answer is…yes. I can. Yes, I can protect your little town…for a price.”

Benedict’s father approached them, his face careworn and oddly heavy. “We sent you a promise of gold,” he said roughly, staring at the Dark One as if he could not quite believe he was truly there.

“Ahh,” the Dark one said, drawing it out, “No, you see, I, uh, _make_ gold.”

Benedict swallowed. “Then we can offer something else,” he said hastily. “We have more to offer than gold – and little enough of that in any case.” He gritted his teeth to force out the next word. “Please.”

The Dark One’s eyes ran over him in what might have been amusement or contempt. “Is that so?” he said lightly. “And what is it that this backwater has to offer, hmm?”

“Anything you ask,” Benedict said, ignoring the hiss of Gaston’s breath behind him. It was reckless, he knew that, but…well, what choice did they have? Whatever Rumpelstiltskin could ask, it would be better than the ogres. He stared into those strange eyes like a mouse caught in the gaze of a snake, and hoped the price would not be more than he could live with.

The Dark One tipped his head to one side. “ _Anything_ ,” he said sceptically, with an extravagant flick of the hand, “That’s quite a broad assumption there, dearie. What if I were to ask more than you are prepared to give?”

“If it is mine to offer, I am offering it,” Benedict said, hating the desperation barely hidden in his voice. He could feel Gaston’s incredulous eyes on him and the prickle of shame, to be seen begging like this before all his father’s advisors, but what choice did he have? He could feel, too, another set of eyes, the weight of the Spinner’s gaze on him, assessing and oddly heavy, and he felt heat rush to his face.

“Well…” the Dark One said, drawing the word out long and mocking. “In that case…I ask for you.”

Of all the things Benedict had expected to hear, that was not the last only because it had not appeared on the list at all.

“What’s that, dearie?” the Dark One cupped one clawed hand around his ear, “Too much for your _delicate_ noble sensibilities? You did _say_ …”

“I’ll do it.”

For a moment, the war room was so quiet that Benedict could hear, outside, the sounds of the men in the courtyard, the crying of children, the distant roar of the sea. Then, all at once, there was a tumult of protests.

“No!” Sir Maurice roared above it all. “No, Benedict, I forbid it – _think_ , boy, you are my only heir-”

“If we all die, there will be nothing to inherit anyway!” Benedict said, wishing for one useless moment that he could catch his father’s hands and beg him to understand without demeaning both of them in the eyes of the gathered knights. He wanted to say ‘let me do this’, but the answer would never be ‘yes’, no matter how cleverly he put his case. “I…I’m not asking for your permission, Papa.” He looked back at Rumpelstiltskin. “And the war?” he asked. “It will- it will be over? The ogres will be gone? No more of our men will die?”

“Only the Dark One has life eternal,” the Dark One twittered. “But they will live long enough. You have my word.”

“Then you have mine,” Benedict said, his mouth suddenly dry. “I will go with you.”

The Spinner steepled his fingers, “It’s forever, dearie.”

Benedict nodded. He didn’t trust his voice. He- He was still in his armour, he had his sword right there, he had never even considered reaching for it. He was hungry and freezing and everything he had ever heard about honour or glory or the price of magic seemed suddenly as ephemeral as a dream, for what price could anyone demand, even the Dark One himself, that would be worse than what he had seen at Avonlea, or any of the towns that had come before it.

“Deal,” the Dark One giggled – and it was a giggle, more than a word, high-pitched and manic and oddly childlike.

“ _Benedict_ ,” his father repeated, as near to a plea as honour would let him go. “Benedict, _please_. You can’t do this. You can’t go with this- this _beast_!”

The Dark One opened his mouth wide and laid a hand to his leathery breast in mock-horror at his rudeness. Benedict almost wanted to laugh at that, absurdly. Was this hysteria? Or just plain relief at the thought that he might never see another battlefield again.

“Father,” he said, as gently as he could, and looked around at the assembled company. “My lords. It has been decided. Choose another heir – petition the king if you must.”

“Oh, he must,” the Dark One agreed, with that same awful glee in his voice. “The deal is struck.”

On the last word, he drew out his fingers as if measuring thread, and when he came to the end of it, the whole room could feel it. It felt like- like Benedict imagined an earthquake might, except that the room itself remained perfectly still, and only the people shook beneath the force of it. Benedict, standing closest, felt as if it ought to have knocked him down entirely, and it was only the Dark One’s hand at his elbow, tight and hard and possessive, which held him upright.

“Careful, dearie,” the Dark One said, with another of those dragonish smiles, “We wouldn’t want you breaking that neck of yours too early, now, _would_ we?” He put his hand to his mouth in feigned shock. “Oh! Congratulations on your little war!” He said it with another mad giggle, and Benedict didn’t think there was a man in the war room who didn’t want to kill the Dark One himself in that moment.

Still, he turned. Still, he left, and Benedict followed, and though no physical chain bound him, he could still feel the weight of his promise like an iron band about his throat.


	3. Mary Gold - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By request of a friend on tumblr, Mary's response to the Moe French thing.

With Gold safe in the cells, you’d think Emma’s evening would be over, and you would be almost entirely wrong. This was Storybrooke. More than that, this was _Mr Gold_ – if he had wanted to ruin Moe French’s life, he could’ve taken everything the man had just by pulling a couple of strings. He could’ve turned the man out on the street and had everyone in town too terrified to do a thing to help him, and all of that would’ve been easier and less likely to end in legal trouble for Gold than kidnapping the guy, driving him out into the middle of the woods and beating him with the intention of reducing him to a greasy smear on the floorboards. This was angry, this was impassioned, this was…hell, this was about the most spontaneous thing Emma had ever seen Gold do, and she’d been in town for a while now. And, most confusing of all, when Emma finally got home, braced to tell Mary the bad news, Mary had listened, stone-faced, and said just one word at the end of it:

“Good.”

Emma gaped at her. “Did you not hear what I said?” she demanded. “Your father just _beat a guy within an inch of his life_ -”

“No,” Mary corrected, “He beat Moe French within an inch of his life. There is a difference.”

“-for stealing some- Hang on, _what_?”

Mary was not, as a general rule, the sort of person to overlook her father’s ruthlessness. She knew about it, she loved him, she’d never gone so far as to cut ties, but she didn’t try to brush it aside. She’d been furious with him about the whole Ashley thing, and even if she hadn’t been _surprised_ by his involvement with the election and the fire at city hall, that was a very different thing to sitting there, cool as a cucumber, and absolutely in favour of the fact that Moe French was in the hospital with what had sounded like every bone in his body broken. Gold’s words from the cabin rose up again in Emma’s mind. _I will never be able to make you pay for what you did to her. How you hurt her._ There was only one ‘her’ in Gold’s life that mattered.

“Mary…” she began, “Back…back at the cabin where we found Moe French. I- I heard a bit of what Mr Gold was saying. He- He kept talking about how Moe hurt ‘her’, what he did to ‘her’…was that you?”

Mary had suddenly gone very still, and very quiet. “No,” she said shortly. “No, it wasn’t.”

Emma glared at her. “Who, then? Because if someone’s in trouble, if they need help, I can’t just-”

“You’re going to have to,” Mary said, sounding very tired and a little sad. “Look, Emma…”

“I’m going out,” Emma said. She didn’t want to look at Mary right now, couldn’t understand why she was taking all of this so calmly. And she knew, she just knew that Gold would find a way to slither out of this somehow, just like he had done with everything else he’d done since she’d come to town. It seemed to be the man’s greatest talent, which had done wonders for her ability to live with his daughter, but very little for the state of affairs in this crazy little town where she had, despite her best efforts, started to build a life for herself. And just…dammit, why was she the only person here who realised that this sort of thing didn’t _happen_ outside of bad television mystery shows? None of it – not the Mayor and her probably-illegal levels of power, not Mr Gold and his equally shady influence over this down, not her _fucking_ roommate who was too deep in with all of this, and didn’t seem to see, didn’t seem to know-

Emma couldn’t deal with this right now. She found her feet carrying her towards Granny’s. The Valentine’s Day throng was clearing out now, it couldn’t be that far off closing time, and for a moment she worried whether she’d just be causing Granny and Ruby more trouble if she came in now, but no, there were still a few old hands in the corners, Leroy passed out in a booth. She settled into a stool by the bar and ordered…honestly, she didn’t care what, so long as it had an alcohol content high enough to fell an elephant.

Granny slid over a bottle of something suspiciously unlabelled and clear as water, and watched Emma shrewdly from across the bar.

“Guessing that has something to do with why you headed out of here hell for leather earlier,” she said casually.

Emma took a long gulp of…whatever the hell it was, she was probably better off not knowing…and felt it burn all the way down. “Yup,” she said gloomily. “Mr Gold, assault and battery on some guy who stole from his house.”

Granny raised her eyebrows, “I’d have thought Gold had someone to do all of that for him,” she said gruffly.

“Yeah, well, this looked personal,” Emma shifted, not wanting to reveal the whole thing, but she needed to talk to _someone_. “Uh…has there been any…previous history with Mr Gold and a guy called Moe French?”

“No, not that I can think of, except…” the blood drained from Granny’s face. “Lacey,” she said, resigned and almost disgusted. “It would have to be Lacey again. Trust that girl to still be causing trouble after twenty years.”

Emma frowned. “Lacey? Who’s Lacey?”

“Your friend Mary’s mother,” Granny said, “Gold’s wife.”

Emma looked up, startled. “She’s…uh....”

“Died in a car crash…oh, years ago. He and the boy.”

“Let me guess,” Emma said dryly, “Moe French was the other driver. Hang on – what boy?”

Granny nodded grimly. “Baden. Mary’s twin. Not that we ever got a decent explanation of what she was doing out on the roads with two kids that age in the car with her – most of the coverage said it had to have been pretty late when the accident happened.”

“Maybe she was leaving,” Emma said. She’d always figured that was what had happened – there weren’t any pictures of Mary’s mother in the apartment, Mary never talked about her. People didn’t behave that way about dead parents, at least not dead parents they’d liked.

Granny shrugged, “Could have been. Could have been he found out the kids weren’t his after all, could have been she was just sick of the sight of him – all sorts of rumours going ‘round after it happened.”

So…why now?” Emma asked, tipping her head to one side, “This was what, twenty years ago? Why wait all this time, if he was going to go off the deep end?”

Granny shrugged, “You said Moe stole from him. Maybe that was it. Or maybe it’s just that he can get away with it now. He was new to town back then, he couldn’t have got away with going after Moe, not when the whole town’d know it was him.”

Emma couldn’t help but feel a slight stab of pity for Gold. “French didn’t face charges?”

Granny shook her head, and looked maybe a little ashamed. “You have to understand,” she said, not unkindly, “Gold would have my head if I knew I was saying this, but Lacey was…well, she grew up here, and in her day, Lacey Blanchard could give my Ruby a run for her money.”

“Drunk?” Emma asked.

Granny shrugged, “Can’t say I know. This was twenty years ago, and the details weren’t put about much, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she were. That girl did it all – stayed out all night at the rabbit hole, drank like a fish, slept her way through half the high school football team…she came back from law school with Gold in tow and two kids already, and there were a fair few rumours flying around about whether those two were even Gold’s. Women like that ain’t made for commitment.”

Emma gave her a sharp look, “Rumours aren’t fact,” she said flatly, “And if Mary’s not his, Gold doesn’t know about it. Not with the way he is with her.”

Mr Gold was as ruthless as they came, but no-one could deny that he adored his daughter. It was almost painful to be in the same room, sometimes, because if Mr Gold, the most stone-cold bastard Emma had ever known, could be that devoted to a daughter it turned out might not even be really his, how come Emma’s parents couldn’t have done the same for her?

“Kind of funny,” she added, “Most girls like you just described don’t go on to law school.”

Granny made a contemptuous noise, “Oh, she was smart enough, when she applied herself,” she said dismissively, “That was half the reason she got away with most of what she did. Still…let’s just say Lacey was always a bit wild, whereas Moe…well, he likes a drink every now and then, but that’s hardly worth ruining a man’s life over.”

“A woman _died_!” Emma snapped, “And a kid who must’ve been – how old were they when it happened?”

Fuck, just when she thought this town couldn’t get any more warped than it already was…she’d known, objectively, that Mary had to have _had_ a mother. She’d just…never thought to ask. Family was a touchy subject with them, it always had been, but Mr Gold on his own had been enough to account for that.

“In an accident,” Granny retorted, “An accident most of the reports agreed she probably caused. The Mirror did stories on it for a full week, and most of them agreed on that much.”

“Based on…what evidence?”

Granny raised her eyebrows. “Getting a bit defensive over your roommate’s mother, aren’t you?”

“Mary’s my friend,” Emma said shortly, “I haven’t got enough of those to treat them that casually. She tossed down a few bills on the counter and stood. “I’m done here.”

The streets were all but deserted as she walked back, the Valentine’s Day displays in the shop windows rendered strangely eerie in the darkness, and in the light of what had happened that night. It seemed like Sean and Ashley were the only people in Storybrooke who had anything good to say of the day this year. Mary’s relationship with David Nolan was skidding towards disaster, Moe French would have so many hospital bills it’d be a wonder he didn’t lose his shop altogether, and the worst of it was, Emma wasn’t altogether sure he hadn’t deserved it.

Mary was curled on the sofa when Emma got back to the loft, her feet tucked under her and a notebook in her lap, the brown one with the flowery pattern where she kept her lesson plans. She looked up as Emma came in, but didn’t say anything. Emma thought what she knew must be written across her face, didn’t know how she could begin to hide it.

“Someone told you,” Mary said simply. “You wouldn’t be looking at me like that if they hadn’t.”

Emma snorted, “And you knew they would,” she said. “It might’ve saved me the trouble of finding a new place to get lunch if you’d just told me outright. I don’t think I’m that popular at Granny’s after she…uh…filled me in on the details.”

Mary shook her head, an odd, cynical sort of twist to her lips. “Let me guess. You got the ‘Lacey Gold was a slut who deserved what she got’ version of events, didn’t you?”

“Uh…” Emma groped for something to say, “They…didn’t really put it like that.”

Mary snorted. “Granny’s never been shy about thinking it,” she admitted, “Nor has anyone else old enough to remember. Like any of them ever gave Mom the time of day when she was still around.”

“You…uh…you remember that?”

Mary shrugged, “It didn’t exactly change after the accident. Mom…well, it’s a small town, small minds.”

“I saw,” Emma muttered. She was beginning to see where Henry’s ‘this whole town was created as a prison for the Queen’s enemies’ thing was coming from. If life was this miserable for everyone, she’d be starting to come up with conspiracy theories too.

“Besides,” Mary added, “I remember bits and pieces. Other kids making up skipping rhymes about things none of us knew enough to understand, no-one wanted either Bae or me to play with their kids. We were the only ones at the funeral, and with the way everyone talked about her before-”

“Before your dad owned the whole town and would evict anyone who talked smack about his wife?” Emma hazarded.

Mary grinned. “Yeah,” she said, that same hard, un-Mary-like edge to her voice. “Before that.”

Emma looked away. She didn’t want to think about that, she didn’t _want_ to sympathise with someone whom, just hours ago, she’d seen beating a man until he could hardly move. “So, how does Moe French come into all this?” she asked, “I mean, Granny said there weren’t any charges brought…”

“No, there weren’t,” Mary said shortly. “Never mind that the whole town knows he’s been half-pickled for as long as anyone can remember, of course _he_ wasn’t drunk. Never mind that he’d been seen leaving the Rabbit Hole earlier that night! Mom was the other driver, so naturally it had to be all _her_ fault.” She blew out a breath. “I was having trouble sleeping, and driving helped. And Mom…liked night driving. She’d find all these weird routes through the woods and tell stories while we drove. Not that anyone believes any of that.”

“I- I’m sorry,” Emma said, uselessly. “I didn’t know.”

Mary shrugged, “I know,” she said simply. “But you wanted to know, and there it is. And if Moe French thought he could steal from us after that and Dad would just take it, he’s even dumber than I thought he was.”

Emma wished she couldn’t understand that perspective on the whole thing, but…well, honestly it was a difficult thought to avoid. If it had been Henry who had died like that, or – she thought, absurdly, of Graham – if she had found someone she loved well enough to marry them, well enough to want to live out her whole life with them, well enough to devote years, or so it sounded like, to being able to ruin the lives of everyone who ever so much as sneered at them in the street…yes, she could well imagine that she would do anything and everything in her power to see the person responsible facing all the punishment they deserved.


	4. Rumbelle M/M - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another tumblr prompt asking for Emma and Benedict's first meeting. I always felt a bit cheated that we didn't get a proper reaction to Gold being one half of Beauty and the Beast in canon, and I'm making up for it here.

Mr Gold wasn’t in the shop proper when Emma came storming in, but she knew he was there, even with the ‘closed’ sign up in the window and the suspiciously empty shopfront. Mr Gold hardly seemed to occupy his luxurious pink house in the good part of town at all, and rent collection day wasn’t for a while yet, which was good, because Emma had no idea how that was going to be dealt with, or even if Gold still owned the whole town the way he had under the curse – they were having a bit of a government problem right now, as no-one had got around to sorting things out on a more permanent business while she and Mary- she and Snow were away. Besides, she could hear something like laughter from behind the door through to the back room, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been in there before.

“Gold?” she called, approaching it, “Gold? Are you in he-”

The door swung open, and Emma was brought up short. Admittedly, so was Gold, and so was-

“Who’s this guy?” Emma demanded, staring at the lanky, curly-haired younger man – _much_ younger, not even Emma’s age – who was sitting perched on the edge of Gold’s desk and had, when she opened the door, been kissing him. At the moment, he was staring straight back at Emma looking as affronted as a cat that had just received an unexpected drenching.

Gold glared at her. “Miss Swan. Don’t you have a happy family reunion to get back to?”

Under other circumstances, he might have managed to make it menacing. On the other hand, he did still have curly-hair’s arms draped around his neck, as they hadn’t yet had time to draw away from one another, and it was difficult to look menacing in that position.

“Yeah, well, something happened to break it up – is- are you- he isn’t forcing you to be here, is he? Because we can help you with that, if-”

“No, no, I’m here by choice,” curly-hair said, and did not smile. “Benedict of Avonlea. And you’re Emma Swan, yes? Rumpel’s mentioned you before.”

Emma looked from Gold to…well, Ben, she supposed, and groaned. “Gold, what’s going on here?”

“You mean apart from the obvious?” Gold asked, finally disentangling his…boyfriend? Fuck-buddy? Accomplice-with-benefits? Oh, hell, disentangling _Ben’s_ arms from around his neck. “Other than interrupting a very pleasant lunch,” he added, and nodded at a picnic basket from Granny’s, sitting quite innocently on the other side of the desk. “What is it that you wanted, Miss Swan?”

Emma tried to remember, but it was difficult, with both Gold’s and Ben’s eyes on her. It wasn’t that she had anything against it, exactly, except she kind of did. Gold was a snake at best, and that was probably an insult to the moral character of snakes. And Ben was…well, how old was he? If she were being flippant, Emma would say he looked about twelve years old apart from the height, and he couldn’t be much more than…early-to-mid-twenties? Maybe her own age, at a stretch? And even if Ben said he was here willingly, the situation pretty much _screamed_ ‘taking advantage’. And…well, ok, maybe the guy thing was a bit distracting, because Emma could suddenly appreciate why it was that Ruby had started spending her lunch hour in the library, and she hadn’t known Gold swung that way at all. But that was still secondary to the absolute _certainty_ that whatever this was, it was going to end badly.

“I know you killed him,” she said flatly, and maybe if he’d been alone she’d have found a more diplomatic way to say that, but probably she wouldn’t.

Gold’s expression hardly changed at all, but Ben’s did.

“Someone’s dead?” he asked, looking honestly concerned, which was another massive red flag about what he was doing with Gold.

Emma nodded. “Doctor Hopper.”

“Why on earth would you think I had anything to do with that?” Gold asked, raising his eyebrows.

Emma gritted her teeth. “Because all the evidence points to Regina!”

“And she’s not _possibly_ capable of doing something so vile?” Ben put in acidly.

“It was a frame job,” Emma retorted.

Ben gave her a sideways look, “Prove it,” he said, “What makes you think this particular murder isn’t her doing? And why would it matter if it were? You haven’t done anything about any of her _other_ crimes yet.”

Emma glared straight back at him, “Right now, we’re investigating _this_ one. And if you’re going to start bringing old crimes into it, you might want to take a closer look at your boyfriend. Or didn’t you know you’d got into bed with Rumpelstiltskin?”

“Didn’t I-” Ben laughed. “I’m perfectly well aware of who Rumpel is, thank you,” he said, smiling at Gold, whose expression softened fractionally. “I used to work for him, before the curse. So, believe me when I say that can’t think of any motive Rumpel has to do anything to Doctor Hopper.”

“No motive _except_ to frame Regina,” Emma agreed, “To hurt her any way he can. Where were you when that wraith thing was flying around a few weeks back? Do you know who _caused_ -?”

“Sheriff Swan,” Gold interrupted. “I understand you are unwilling to accept my answers on faith, but fortunately, you don’t have to. Ask the witness.”

Emma blinked. “No-one was there!”

Gold gave her a mild, puzzled, deceptive sort of look, “Well, that’s not strictly true, now, is it?”

And that was how Emma ended up calling her parents to see if they could bring a damn dog over to Mr Gold’s pawnshop, as if that made any sense at all when, no matter what Gold’s talents might be, she was pretty sure ‘talking to animals’ was reserved for Disney princesses. A category which hopefully did not include anyone Emma actually knew, regardless of titles.

“They’ll be over in five minutes,” she said, pocketing her phone, and then, because apparently she couldn’t help herself. “So, how come I haven’t seen you around before? I was here for a few months before the curse broke.”

Gold’s glare was quelling, but Ben didn’t seem to notice, “The Queen had me locked up for most of it,” he said, “Under the hospital – I don’t know how many of us there were in there – but I got out just before the curse broke.” He smiled, and if there was pain there, it was easily hidden. “I work at the library now, which…I don’t think I will ever stop being astonished how many books there are in this world!”

Emma, who was still having trouble with the ‘locked up for twenty-eight years’ part of that sentence, groped for something to say. “And, uh, before that?”

“Benedict made a deal with me about…oh, I’d call it five years before the curse was enacted,” Gold said, smiling in a way that was both realer and more unnatural on his face than any Emma had seen before. “His service, for his people’s lives.”

“Rumpel, you’re giving her entirely the wrong idea,” Ben said chidingly, though there was still a hint of laughter in his voice. “I was his valet,” he added, when Emma looked questioningly at him. “Nothing…else…happened until just before I…left.”

Ok, that was _way_ too many significant pauses for that to be the whole story, and even Gold looked faintly guilty at that part, even as he laid a gentle, familiar hand on the small of Ben’s back. Ben smiled sunnily back at him, and it would’ve been almost sweet, if Emma didn’t know _exactly_ what sort of man Gold was.

Snow got there first, and Emma went out into the shopfront to meet her because honestly just being around Gold made her want to punch something. She could still hear, from the back room, the sounds of quiet conversation, too low to make out. Christ. Gold had a boyfriend. Had Henry’s book ever mentioned that little detail? Probably not, given how old-fashioned a lot of Storybrooke had seemed to her when she first arrived. Then again, she hadn’t exactly memorised the thing back when she still thought it was just the kid’s delusion. Said boyfriend also seemed to be a nice, reasonable human being, albeit one who was still understandably a bit hacked off about the Regina thing. They’d have to look into those claims about an underground prison, see if anyone else had been kept there. It just went to show…something. Probably something about luck, because next to Emma’s disastrous track record since she came to this crazy town (one brainwashed and dead, one made out of wood, one compulsive-leering pirate whom she was starting to wish she’d left to the ogres), Gold and Ben seemed like…well, like something out of a fairy-tale. One of the sort Emma had heard as a child and detested for the false, overpowering sweetness of them as she grew older and more cynical. It felt unfair, somehow, that Gold had achieved something Emma had only ever briefly tasted.

The bell tinkled as Snow came in.

“Emma? I came as fast as I could – what do you need Pongo for?”

Emma shrugged. “Some idea of Gold’s to ‘prove’ he didn’t do it. He’s…uh…he wasn’t alone when I came in.”

“Another deal?” Snow asked, craning her neck to look over Emma’s shoulder. “Who is it?”

Emma shifted uneasily. She didn’t know what the prevailing Enchanted Forest attitude to that sort of thing was, but going off the general medieval vibe she was guessing ‘not good’.

“I…uh, I don’t think this one’s interested in making a deal,” she said awkwardly, “He says his name’s Ben, he works at the library.”

Snow brightened. “Oh! Ruby was talking about him at the diner earlier – I don’t remember ever meeting him during the curse, though. Or…well, I suppose I wouldn’t remember, with the library closed and all.”

“You wouldn’t have met him,” Emma said flatly, and then, “Regina had him locked up. Under the hospital, he says, and he doesn’t know how many others with him. Even if you’re wrong about this one, I think we’re going to need to find out more.”

Snow’s mouth twisted in that soft, pained way she had when she didn’t want to contradict someone. It had been Mary Margaret’s expression first, and it didn’t suit her, the her she was now. “Emma,” she said softly, “I really don’t think we are. Wrong, I mean. About Regina. Not everything is as complicated as you make out.”

Emma stared at her. “…in this town? Really?”

“Yes, really!” Snow glanced at the door through to the back room and visibly steeled herself. Emma did the same, although for what she presumed were different reasons.

“Well,” she said. “We can’t avoid him forever.”

Ben and Gold were, to Emma’s relief, a decorous arm’s length apart from one another when she followed Snow into the back room. Ben had a book on his lap, though it didn’t look as if he’d been reading it, and his curls were neater than they’d been when Emma had walked in on them. Gold looked his usual inscrutable self.

“Benedict, isn’t it?” Snow said warmly, “I’m Snow – Ruby talks about you a lot.”

Ben nodded, “She’s a good friend,” he agreed, perhaps a little stiffly. “She, uh, mentioned you, while you were away.”

Snow nodded, “Yes – it’s nice to see she’s meeting people who don’t mind about her…uh…”

“Furry little problem?” Ben suggested. Emma nearly choked.

Snow looked bewildered for a moment, but smiled anyway. It was only then that Emma realised quite what she had in mind.

“You know,” Snow said, “She’s been alone ever since Peter – her first love, you know – died. Men around here…well, they still seem to think of her the way they did when we were cursed, and it makes it difficult to find…longer-term company.”

Benedict nodded, still looking politely puzzled in a way that was _probably_ an act, though Emma couldn’t be entirely sure.

“She doesn’t seem to be pining for it,” he said neutrally, “Besides, it’s been less than a fortnight since Gus died – she deserves a bit more time to grieve.”

Snow at least had the grace to look slightly ashamed. “I suppose…still, you’re not going anywhere, are you?”

“Certainly not yet,” Gold agreed acidly. Which…yeah, Emma should probably change the subject before Mr Gold decided trying to vicariously steal his boyfriend was an assault-and-battery-worthy offence.

“ _Snow_ ,” she started warningly, and then changed her mind. “So…uh, where’s Pongo? I thought you said David was going to bring him over?”

“He is,” Snow said distractedly, entirely failing to get the hint. “I thought you might need back-up, if- if you turned out to be right.”

“Your faith in my abilities is touching, of course,” Gold said, “But what motive could I possibly have to kill your daughter.”

Snow glared at him. “You’ve never been shy about shedding blood before!”

“True. But always with a purpose. Always with greater goals in mind. Besides…” Gold’s smile was wide and wolfish. “She owes me a favour.”

Ben looked slightly perturbed by that, which was good so far as his common sense went, though Emma didn’t want to lay bets on how long that was going to last.

“How far away is David?” she asked, looking over at Snow.

Snow shrugged, “Five minutes, maybe? It might take a little longer, with Pongo to worry about. So…” she smiled at Ben again, and Emma tried not to groan. “How did you meet Ruby, if it wasn’t under the curse?”

“At the diner,” Ben said distractedly, either genuinely oblivious to what Snow was getting at or pretending to be so. “She, uh, helped me find my way around, since I hadn’t seen a lot of Storybrooke during the curse.”

Snow’s smile dimmed a little at that reminder. “Yes, Emma told me you were…why did Regina want to keep you prisoner?”

“As leverage against me,” Gold said darkly, fixing Snow with a glare that could’ve turned a gorgon to stone. “I suggest you don’t make any attempt to do the same.”

Amazingly, even _that_ wasn’t enough to bring home exactly what was going on, but then, the Enchanted Forest hadn’t seemed all that enlightened about that sort of thing from what Emma had seen of it Snow looked shaken, but nodded and forced a smile.

“We hadn’t considered it.”

Gold’s eyes remained hard, but he nodded back, and did not speak again.

Benedict reached over and caught Gold’s hand, “I told you,” he said quietly, “Revenge isn’t what’s needed here. And I don’t want to see anyone else hurt because you tried to avenge me.”

 _Gone forever – and it’s your fault! It’s your fault!_ The words resurfaced in Emma’s mind, and though Valentine’s Day had been months ago, and Gold’s breakdown had hardly been spoken of since…well, it might not be related, but Emma thought she knew who the ‘he’ Gold had denied was now.

“Well,” Snow said, apparently still oblivious, “Maybe Ruby can show you a bit more of the town in future? Say…over dinner? Maybe drinks. It’ll do you no good to stay cooped up in that library forever.”

Mercifully, the shop’s bell rang from the other room, and Emma looked around, desperate for some distraction from the slow train-wreck that was her mother’s matchmaking attempts. David looked rumpled and windblown and confused as he came through into the back room, and Emma couldn’t blame him – there hadn’t exactly been time to explain why they needed Pongo. _She_ didn’t even know why they needed Pongo, but according to Gold they did, and he tended to be reliable on magic, if nothing else. Hopefully Ben would prove to be a good influence.

“Gold,” David said by way of greeting, “Benedict.”

Snow glanced around, startled. “You know each other?”

“We’ve met,” David said tersely, relaxing his grip on Pongo’s lead to let the dog run to Gold, who slid painfully down to one knee to pet the dog’s ears, murmuring the usual sort of soothing nonsense people who liked dogs tended to use around them.

“I, uh, didn’t realise you were such a dog person,” Ben said, half-laughing as he leant against the counter, watching the scariest man in town with a light in his eyes that made Emma uncomfortable just looking at them.

Gold grinned. “Well, a long time ago, in another life…” He turned Pongo’s head around to face him. “I got to know a sheepdog or two.”

Emma cleared her throat, and got the meeting back on track because, illuminating as this whole thing had been, she really didn’t have time for any further revelations about how everyone in this town but her seemed to be at ease with the whole ‘happily ever after’ thing being a possibility. Whatever else was going on, Gold was still a suspect and, once they had the real culprits behind bars, maybe she could have a word with Snow about just why setting up Ruby and Ben wasn’t such a good idea.


	5. Mary Gold - Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From another tumblr request - how did Rumbelle really happen in this 'verse. (I realise that these two AUs are getting an unfair amount of focus, but they are the ones I have the most written of)

Belle had expected the journey to Rumpelstiltskin’s lands to take days, if not weeks, but she had forgotten the sorcerous nature of her new master. In a whirl of that spiny leather coat, they had been gone from the corridors of her father’s castle in the Marchlands, and transported almost a hundred leagues at a stroke, to the high mountains that separated the Marchlands from Misthaven to the north and King Midas’ lands to the east.

She had not expected the castle itself, fanciful and many-towered and beautiful in the way of castles in books, never intended for practical defence. Nor had she expected the cold, deeper even than the biting chill of the wind off the sea in the winters, which cut through her flimsy golden gown as if it were nothing, making her shiver even as they entered the bare stone entrance hall of the Dark One’s castle. Even here, Belle’s expectations were dashed – the room was small, its vaulted ceiling and wide stone stairs the only points it had in common with the grand entryways of her father’s castle and that of Gaston’s father the earl. And yet this was no small border keep, where one might be expected to stint on the luxuries expected of a larger castle. Then it struck her, what need had the Dark One to display his power and wealth, when everyone knew that he was second in power only to the gods, and wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice?

She tried not to think of what he had meant, in her father’s war room, when he said he had need of a lady, a noblewoman to grace his castle, and that Belle in fact would be _of great use to him_. He had said those same words, watching her with eyes that had seemed utterly alien to her, dark and changeable and flecked with gold. She knew what her father would make of those same words, and wished she could trust that his horror at Rumpelstiltskin’s demands had been purely out of concern for her, and not fear of the loss of his most valuable bargaining chip. Theirs was a little province, Sir Maurice had little enough but Belle’s beauty and her dowry of silver and pearls with which to secure an alliance, and even that was with Gaston, a second son and one of dubious character at that. And they had needed Gaston, for second son or not, his father had wealth enough and men enough to help stem the tide of ogres who came from the south and would have swept over King George’s lands in an instant without Avonlea and its neighbouring provinces to hold them back.

“Hurry up, dearie,” Rumpelstiltskin trilled, as Belle stopped in the doorway, looking back over the strange, snow-covered formal gardens and the gatehouse beyond. “You’re letting the cold in.”

“Oh! Sorry,” Belle said hastily, letting the door fall shut behind her. The key turned in the lock of its own accord, and disappeared to twirl for a moment around Rumpelstiltskin’s finger, before disappearing again into some inner pocket of his fine leather inner coat. He gave her a predatory sort of sideways smile as he led her up the wide stone stairs. They narrowed as soon as they turned off from the entrance hall, curving back around onto a narrow stone passageway lined with heavy tapestries, still bright despite their obvious age. She followed Rumpelstiltskin down corridors and along corners, up yet more corridors and through great, strange rooms which seemed to exist for no other purpose than to show off strange and beautiful items, presumably the prices exacted for a hundred other deals. Maybe they were all captured maidens, transformed into less troublesome shapes…but no, she was being foolish. No-one ever spoke of the Spinner abducting young maidens before. Children, yes, quite often, but never a grown woman.

“Uh…excuse me,” she said, trying to hide the tremor in her voice, for she was entirely in his power now, and if he killed her, there would be nothing she could do. “But you still haven’t told me what I’m here for? I- If you needed a servant, or, or…”

“Oh, I’ve never had any use for servants, dearie,” Rumpelstiltskin said, giving her a wide and wicked grin, “They have a tendency towards…prying…into things better left unseen. No, what I want from you is something altogether more challenging.” He stopped before an elaborately-carved door and, with exaggerated care, peeked around it, before withdrawing with a brisk sort of nod and throwing the doors wide open.

“I’ve brought you something,” he announced as he entered the room, and Belle stopped short of the sight of a young girl, not much more than twelve or thirteen by the look of her, dressed in a rich red kirtle and a blue surcoat trimmed with fur, and looking irritated, but not the least bit surprised or afraid to find the Dark One standing there, grinning so wide it almost split his face in two and gesturing to Belle with the air of a conjurer having pulled off a particularly impressive trick.

The girl sat up straighter, pulling her dark blue sash tighter around her waist, “Who’s that supposed to be?” she demanded, staring at Belle in astonishment.

“Why, your new governess,” Rumpelstiltskin twittered, clapping his hands together in front of him. “I can’t have you running completely wild, can I? Whatever _would_ your poor stepmother say, if she were to find I’d kept you completely ignorant of how things work at court?”

The ghost of a smirk flitted across the girl’s face, before fading as she took in Belle, bewildered and bedraggled and still far, far too cold, the harsh mountain air far too much for a constitution more used to milder climes.

“You’ve been terrorising her the whole way here, haven’t you?” she accused, rounding on Rumpelstiltskin, “And if you hadn’t found me, you were going to put her in the cells overnight just to see if she’d break, I suppose?”

The Dark One giggled, entirely unrepentant. “Well, you’d hardly want some milksop girl who’d be trailing snot and tears everywhere and hardly be able to string your lessons together for crying. Besides, the cells are far from the worst I could inflict on her, if I chose to be cruel.”

“I _know_ that,” the girl snapped. “Why bother terrorising her, she’s scared stiff anyway?”

This, Belle felt, was a bit much. “I’m not _scared_ ,” she protested, “Only cold. And confused.”

Quite deeply confused, actually, because this was nothing she had ever thought to expect. Backbreaking physical labour, yes, or being converted against her will into potion ingredients if she was especially unlucky. She did not want to dwell on the other uses someone such as the Dark One could have found for a noble daughter whose people, at least, had called her beautiful. No-one had ever suggested the possibility of…respectable work, after a fashion, or the presence of what could hardly be anything but the Dark One’s daughter, a girl in need of a tutor.

The girl sighed. “My name’s Snow,” she said frankly, “I’m fourteen and I _don’t_ need a governess.”

“Oh.” Belle frowned. “I’m sorry, that doesn’t quite-”

“She’s my student,” the Dark One said smoothly, “Her stepmother traded her to me in return for a quite useful little spell just over a year ago, and she has lived here ever since. Your task,” he went on, pointing at Belle, “Will be to teach her everything you know about life at court, all the feminine accomplishments that would be expected of a princess, every detail, every trick, every half-remembered fragment of gossip. Do you understand?”

Belle nodded jerkily. She did not dare to say that if he had wanted a courtier, he should have found one, not a petty baron’s daughter from a war-torn corner of King George’s lands, because if she did…visions of the ogres sent back to Avonlea and her father’s castle overturned swam before her eyes, and she bit her tongue, tasting bile.

“I don’t _need_ ‘feminine accomplishments’, Rumpel,” Snow groaned, “I need to know the _politics_! And you’re teaching me that anyway! Where did you even find someone desperate enough to give up her whole life to come away with you?”

“Funny thing you should mention that, precious,” Rumpelstiltskin trilled, “The Lady Bilba here…”

“Belle,” Belle corrected automatically.

Rumpelstiltskin ignored her. “Comes from a land that was involved in a rather nasty war. Involving ogres. I’m sure you’ll remember that one.”

“Ogres?” Snow repeated, “Oh, no. I thought you said-”

“I said that _village_ would have nothing to fear, _not_ the entire kingdom,” Rumpelstiltskin interrupted, clicking his tongue, “There’s only so much I can do, you know.”

“No, I _don’t_ know,” Snow said crossly, “It’s never stopped you before. I thought it was dealt with.”

“All things in time, dearie!”

“Excuse me,” Belle put in, still feeling rather lost, “But I still don’t know what it is you’re talking about!”

Snow sighed. “ _Rumpel_ ,” she said acidly, turning a ferocious glare on Rumpelstiltskin, who only laughed, “Seems to be under the impression that I am- That I was _infatuated_ with a peasant boy who came to the castle last year looking for a way to protect his village from ogres!”

“You _do_ seem very worried about one little village,” the Dark One pointed out, putting one clawed hand on Snow’s shoulder. “And it’s not as though you even asked him to pay for it! I had to go and lie down when I heard about that.”

He grinned, wide and sharp-toothed, and Belle was quite certain he had never had to have a little lie down in his life. All the same…it was difficult to be properly afraid of him, in this comfortable sitting-room bickering with his apprentice. And if Snow was an example of how he treated women won in deals, Belle could not be facing anything so very bad.

As it turned out, that wasn’t far off the mark. It wasn’t the sort of luxurious life one might have expected to lead in the home of the richest creature in a hundred worlds, but Belle had never had much use for luxuries anyway. Snow was likeable enough – wilful, as all girls that age were, but Belle had expected that, even if the first time Snow set her composition-book on fire was a little hair-raising. The problem, though, was exactly what Belle had always thought it would be – she was a country lordling’s daughter, of no particular refinement, being called upon to teach a girl who might be asked to deal with kings and princes, and that was not something Belle’s education had ever been fitted for. Belle had learnt to read and write and sew a sampler very badly, she had learnt the prayers to the Reul Ghorm that Rumpelstiltskin had warned her severely not to speak a word of in his castle, and to sing and play the lute, though her skills there were even worse than her sewing. And none of this, none of it at all, was anything Snow didn’t already know. Belle had no idea how Rumpelstiltskin could have missed it, and yet he continued to drop in on their ‘lessons’, which devolved more often than not into long, rambling conversations about books, or politics, or the duties of a monarch, and pretend – for his ignorance could not be genuine – that he could not tell that her stitches were sloppy and her manners hopelessly rustic and backward for the grand courts at which he bargained, and which Snow would be expected to attend.

On this particular day, the lesson she was officially teaching was music, but it had ceased to be that long ago, their lutes sitting abandoned by their chairs as they argued.

“-but if a monarch _is_ appointed by the gods,” Snow was saying, her cheeks flushed red with indignation, “Why are monarchs dethroned? Or usurped? Or killed? Does that mean that the one doing the usurping is the new rightful king, because they’ve been allowed to succeed, or that the gods just aren’t looking right then and so the old king was the rightful king all along – or that he _was_ the rightful king, but for some reason isn’t any more?”

Belle shrugged, a little helplessly. “I think,” she said, striving for calm, “That the gods have better things to do than worry about who’s king of any particular little piece of land. We have fairies, in the Marchlands,” she added, “But they tend to care more about individual families than they do about anything greater than that, and all you have to do to win their favour is be part of the right family.” The Reul Ghorm herself was one of the guardians of Belle’s own family, and her father had long been a patron of the Order of the Reul Ghorm and the clerics who followed in that path. Belle had never been uneasy about that before, but now the thought struck her that, for all her connection to the lords of Avonlea, the Reul Ghorm had done nothing to end the war.

“You’re right there, dearie,” said a new voice from behind her. Belle didn’t jump. She had done, the first few times Rumpelstiltskin had appeared as if out of nowhere in the corner of whichever room she and Snow were holding lessons in, but now…well, it was only Rumpel. She turned to look at him.

“About what?” she asked.

Rumpelstiltskin giggled, and twined his long fingers together. “Why, fairies, of course. The thing is, Snow,” he said, taking a few steps forwards and leaning theatrically to stage-whisper into Snow’s ear. “Most immortals don’t care two straws what mortals do. Sooner or later, one generation blurs into another, and really, what does it matter if this lot of brief mortals is unhappy. Sooner or later, they’ll be dead and there’ll be a new generation of mortals who will be just as unhappy, but for different reasons.”

“That’s a monstrous way to live!” Belle said, not quite able to help herself.

Rumpelstiltskin turned his peculiar green-golden eyes on her. “Oh?” he asked, drawing the word out unnaturally long, “Is it? Can you say you pay much attention to…let’s say a spider,” he suggested, in a conciliatory sort of fashion, “In the corner of your bedroom. Do you care if it is a happy spider or a sad one? Do you even notice? After a while,” he said, “Everyone starts to look like that, even if you don’t physically turn them into something.”

Belle rolled her eyes, “Yes,” she said, “But I can’t talk to a spider – not and have it talk back in any way I can understand. I don’t go out and make deals with spiders, or take any interest at all in what they’re doing with their lives. I might,” she added, “If I could speak spider, if there’s any such language. But I can’t, so I don’t. Or, I don’t often, anyway,” she amended, because now the idea had been put in her head she knew she would have the thought until it ran its course.

Rumpel tittered, pressing a hand to his chest. “I? Now, did I say I thought of myself as a _god_ , dearie?”

“You didn’t _say_ ‘god’,” Belle pointed out, “You said ‘immortal’, and everyone knows you’ve been around for centuries.”

“Clever,” Rumpelstiltskin conceded, pointing a finger at her, “But not quite clever enough. But to answer your question, precious,” he added, turning to Snow with a flourish, “The point of the ‘the gods did it’ argument is that it is _useful_. If I say, as kings never do, ‘I am king because I am the most dangerous man in this village, and I have all the most dangerous men under my command, and if you say I’m not, I can kill you’, sooner or later, someone more dangerous is going to come along. But!” he held up a finger, “If you start saying ‘I am king because the gods want me to be king, and if you say I’m not _they_ will punish you’…” he waved a hand, “Convenient, isn’t it?” he said, with a diabolical smile. “It keeps everyone quiet, and you don’t have to lift a finger. _That_ is power, Snow, and more certain power even than mine.”

“That,” Belle said, behind him, “Is cynical nonsense.”

Rumpel whirled on the spot, his coat fanning out around him. “Oh?” he chattered, in the bright, brittle way that Belle had learnt meant he was annoyed. “Do tell, then. _Enlighten_ us.”

“If you are going to rule anywhere,” Belle said, very clearly, for Snow’s benefit, “You have a duty to the people who live there. It isn’t having the biggest sword that should make a king, it’s care for your people. You’re responsible for every one of them – the farmers tilling your fields, the cooks who make your meals, the soldiers you send into battle. If you aren’t concerned for every one of their lives, you aren’t fit to call yourself their ruler.” It was the same lesson her father had taught her, when she was a girl, though since the wars began it seemed to have fallen by the wayside in Avonlea.

“Pretty words,” Rumpelstiltskin said, his voice turned low and silken now. “But I’ve lived three hundred years, now, and not once have I ever seen a king who kept his position like that.”

They stared at each other, neither one of them backing down, until Snow broke the silence with an awkward cough.

“Well…um…looks like that’s the end of the lesson,” she said, gathering her skirts and getting up to edge out past the two of them. “I’ll just, uh, leave you to it, shall I? I’m sure you have a lot to discuss, and- And I’ve got a- a thing. To do. In- Uh…” she hovered in the doorway for an instant, before disappearing down the corridor. Belle almost thought she heard something like a giggle, but at that distance it could’ve been anything.

Belle and Rumpelstiltskin stood in the empty room, in the sort of awkward silence only possible between people who were not supposed to interact as they had just done.

“She’s a good girl,” Belle said awkwardly, because…well, she had a vague sense that it was what one was supposed to say, as a teacher. Most of her own governesses had said about the same thing, even if there was usually a ‘but…’ soon afterward.

Rumpelstiltskin gave her a slight, strained smile, less the demon’s grin and more the expression one might expect from one’s employer, the guardian of one’s charge. “Not _too_ good, I should hope,” he said with some satisfaction. “I’ve worked too long and too hard for that. And you,” he said, giving her a sly sidelong look, “Have been holding out on me. I thought I said I would be handling the politics.”

Belle snorted, “It’s what I can do,” she said simply. “There isn’t much call for ladies’ accomplishments of the sort you were after with a war going on.”

“No,” Rumpelstiltskin agreed, sounding sceptical, “I’ve seen enough nobles carrying on as usual while their people died around them. What made you so special?”

Belle snorted, “And _I’ve_ seen enough people doing their utmost to hold back the ogres, noble and common alike. There’s nothing special about wanting to do the right thing, or not having time for fripperies when there are more serious concerns afoot.”

Rumpelstiltskin was still looking at her, in that curious way he had, as if she were something very rare and very strange, and that he had not thought existed before he had known her. It made her slightly uncomfortable, to be the focus of that regard, as if she would abruptly do something disgraceful just under the pressure of Rumpelstiltskin’s strange eyes.


	6. Rumbelle F/F

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lesbian Rumbelle! Because...honestly, Rumpel is pretty femme-coded anyway, and I wanted to explore the idea.

The moment he heard the voice over the intercom, Neal knew he was screwed. Emma Swan. Or whatever her real name had been. Here, in New York, and lying about why she was there. You didn’t have to be all that good at math to work out that she probably wasn’t just working as a delivery girl now the curse on her family had been broken. And in his experience, Emma wasn’t the sort to take being left to rot in prison for his crimes lying down. Really, it was almost a wonder she hadn’t found him earlier. And none of that mattered, because right now, Neal needed to move. Emma herself was enough of a threat. Emma plus enraged friends or family members who wanted to break his kneecaps and chuck him in the Hudson for abandoning her like that was more than any man could be expected to face on only one cup of coffee. He was halfway down the fire escape before Emma even made it out into the open – he caught a flash of blonde hair behind him and ran.  
Even with a lead on her, running flat-out down a New York City street was not the easiest of pursuits – horns blared, pedestrians shoved and slowed him down, and Neal had lost some of his touch since the old days. He leapt a chain railing, trying to remember where the nearest subway entrance was – she’d never catch up to him down there, not if he kept his head down long enough to disappear into the crowds. There was an alley up ahead, if he could only make it-  
“Hey, watch it, pal!” someone yelled after him, as his shoulder caught a bystander squarely in the chest, and Neal pushed on desperately, turning down a side-street he knew had to lead to the subway. Was Emma still behind him?  No way to tell.  
At least, no way to tell until she crashed bodily into him, knocking him to the ground, and Neal braced himself for the accusations, the shouting, the knowledge that no answer he could possibly give would be enough-  
“No…” Emma gasped out. “Neal?”  
Neal looked up at her. “Emma,” he said, his heart sinking in his chest.  
There was the sound of running footsteps from behind them, and Neal twisted around as another woman drew level with them, her brown hair flying wildly around her face.  
“Oh…you got to him then,” she said breathlessly, “Er. This could be slightly awkward…”  
Emma nodded, apparently lost for words, and Neal couldn’t help but feel he’d missed something here.  
“I don’t understand,” he said, getting to his feet, “What’re you doing here – uh. Both of you.”  
Emma spluttered. “What am _I_ doing here?"

“Looking for you,” said the other woman, smiling in a way that looked slightly fearful and didn’t marry at all well with her leather jacket and biker boots. “I’m Belle, by the way,” she added, “I’ve, uh, heard a lot about you.”

Neal frowned. “From Emma?” he asked cautiously, though he couldn’t imagine why she’d seem this pleased to meet him if she had.  
“ _You’re_ Gold’s son?” Emma demanded, apparently finally finding her words. “You…you played me. You’re from _there_ …You played me, and she played me, you _both_ -”

“What- whoa, whoa, Emma, slow down, who’s Gold-”  
The other woman – Belle – swallowed. “Your mother,” she said simply. “Rumpelstiltskin.”  
It was as if the bottom of Neal’s world had been pulled out underneath him, an awful, vertiginous feeling like climbing the stairs in the dark and expecting just one more than there really was.  
“She- she’s here?” he rasped out, his heart beating double-time.  
Emma stared at him. “Why else would I be in New York?”  
“You _brought_ her to me?” Neal demanded, his temper fraying, his voice shooting out of his control. “Why would you do that?”

“Hey! I am the only one allowed to be angry here!” Emma snarled back. “Did you know who I was – where I was from the whole time? Was this just some sort of sick, twisted _plan_? Did – did you even care about me at all?”

Belle blinked. “What- Emma, how do you know him?”  
Emma nodded shortly, abruptly forcing herself back under control, still wide-eyed and shaking as Belle reached out a timid supporting hand. “Yeah,” she said shortly, “Yeah, I know him. I…we used to…” she shook her head, looking pained. “But you,” she glared at Neal, “Are going to explain this. _All_ of this.”

Neal nodded jerkily. “Fine – fine. But we gotta get off the street, we can’t do this in the open. I- I’ve spent a lifetime running from that woman-”  
“And she’s spent _several_ looking for you!” Belle snapped at him, before letting her mouth click closed.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “This…wasn’t how I’d hoped to introduce myself.” She smiled again, a little ruefully, and looked over at Emma. “We probably shouldn’t be yelling about all this out on the street,” she said coaxingly, “Er…there’s probably a…tavern or a diner or some such near here, yes?”

“There’s a bar just down the street,” Neal supplied, still looking at Emma, wondering exactly when it was she’d forgotten everything he’d ever implied or come close to saying about his mother, and exactly why the odds of- of anything good coming out of this were exactly zero.  
“I am not _drinking_ with him!” Emma snapped. “Anything he has to tell me he can tell me here and now!”

Neal restrained the urge to roll his eyes. He hadn’t expected these sorts of histrionics – for that curse to have been broken at all, Emma must’ve had a much, much easier time dealing with her sudden family issues than _he_ would if his mother caught up with him. “No, bar’s better. You can…keep yelling at me when we get there,” he promised, turning to go. If Emma followed, they’d have it out somewhere Neal could at least get a few drinks to take the edge off. If she didn’t, even better.

Behind him, he heard the two women talking quietly. The phrase ‘leave it to me’ met his ears, as did ‘son of a bitch’. Well, Emma _certainly_ wasn’t wrong about that last one. That was half their problem.

His mother…he could almost convince himself, some days, that he’d erased her face from his memory. Then it would come back to him in a flood, good and bad alike. He tried to push the thought aside, focus on what was certain – she’d abandoned him. She’d destroyed their lives, she’d killed men in front of him and not so much as batted an eye. He tried to focus on that part, and on the jeers of ‘whoreson’ in the streets after his father had left, and on the cold and the damp and the hunger. Maybe she really _had_ been what everyone said she was, he thought viciously. She’d been willing enough to sell out everything she’d taught him growing up to keep him alive later on, why not?  
The moment he thought it, he was ashamed, and hated himself for feeling anything at all about the subject. He wasn’t Baelfire, he was Neal Cassidy, he had a right to be Neal Cassidy, Neal Cassidy with his job and his fiancée and his real fucking _life_ right here. He had a right to live his life without looking over his shoulder every moment, in case his mother appeared in a puff of smoke to destroy everything he’d built for himself.

When Emma joined him in the bar, she was alone, the mysterious Belle having apparently been sent to report back to Neal’s mother on what was going on. Quite why Emma was working for her, Neal had no idea. That sentimental weakness for families again, probably, if the last ten years hadn’t finally beaten it out of her.   
“Well,” he said. “What do you want to know, Emma? You want the truth? Ask away.”  
Emma seemed calmer now, but she had her hands tucked out of sight, the way she always did when she was nervous. It gave Neal a warm rush of nostalgia, to see that hadn’t changed either.  
“Did you know who I was when we met?”  
Neal snorted. “If I had, I wouldn’t have gone near you.”  
“Come on,” Emma hissed.  
“‘Come on’? ‘Come on’ _what_? I was in hiding! I came here to get away from…” he gestured wildly, “All that crap.”

Emma swallowed, and when she spoke again her voice was shaky. “So…if you didn’t know, then you were just using me. You just needed someone to take the fall for all the watches you stole.”  
“I wasn’t _using_ you,” Neal said slowly, as much to himself as Emma. He’d liked her. At the time, he might even have loved her, he couldn’t remember now. “When we met, I didn’t know. I found out.”

Emma sat down heavily, and he could see the gleam of tears in her eyes. “How?”  
The full story, not the cut-down version he gave Emma, was worse. All it had taken was the words ‘I know you’re Baelfire’ and he’d been ready to run for the hills. August had said it was absolutely necessary in order for things to happen as they ought, but Neal honestly hadn’t cared. The very thought that his mother had an interest in Emma, and that when she found Emma she might find Neal, would’ve been enough to have him over the border and leaving Emma behind all on its own. He wasn’t proud of it, but there it was.  
“You left me…” Emma gasped out, “And let me go to prison _because Pinocchio told you to_?”  
“Emma-”  
“I loved you!”  
Neal stared down at the table, trying to find something, some words, something that would wipe away the pain on Emma’s face and make it all ok again, the way he always could before, when he’d been nineteen and Emma was sixteen and they’d been young and on top of the world.

“I- I was, um…I was tr- I was trying to help you,” he finally managed.  
Emma gave him a long, cool stare. “By letting me go to jail?”  
“By getting you home.”  
Emma’s jaw set, and she looked up at him, her eyes hard again. “Are you telling me that us meeting was a coincidence? Because how the _hell_ did that happen if it wasn’t in your plan or your mother’s?”  
“Think about it,” Neal said, trying to sound calm and as if he knew the answers, because that had always been his thing, with the two of them. “She wanted you to break the curse. Us meeting could’ve stopped it. Maybe it was fate.”  
Emma’s eyebrows shot upward. “You believe in that?”  
Neal shifted uneasily, “You know, there’s not a ton that I remember about my mother that I remember that doesn’t suck…” He pushed down every memory, every hint there was of…of gentle hands patching up childhood injuries, warm arms around him, a soft, rough brogue telling him stories to chase away the terrors in the dark. That woman had been gone from the moment she took up the Dark One’s dagger. “But she used to tell me that there are no coincidences. Everything that happens, happens by design, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Forces greater than us conspire to make it happen. Fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it, the point is-”

“The point is,” Emma interrupted. “That that’s all well and good and all, but all I can hear right now is you making excuses for the fact that you left me to rot in prison because some complete stranger told you to. And – and how would he have known to call the police on me? What, was just leaving me not _certain_ enough for you, is that it? I’d have had to-” she stopped, breathed in hard through her nose. “Doesn’t matter now. I’m over it. And you.”  
As she stood, Neal saw the flash of silver, but it took him a moment to recognise it. The old swan keychain he’d bought her, years ago, in celebration of their first success.

“Why do you wear the, uh, the keychain I got you?” he asked, not sure what answer he was hoping for.  
Emma reached up to hold it, her face for a moment open and vulnerable, but then it closed off again. “To remind myself never to trust someone again,” she said flatly, and then. “But…I don’t need it, now. I’ve _found_ people who can be trusted. Maybe it was just you the whole time.” She slapped the keychain down next to him, and Neal looked down at the table to avoid having to meet her eyes. Emma always had been smarter than either of them had given her credit for.  
“Come on,” she said, “I made a deal with your mother I’d bring you to her.”  
Neal looked up, heart pounding again against his ribs. “You made a _deal_ with her?” he demanded.

“Yeah,” Emma said flatly. “And I’m upholding my end.” She paused for a moment, and then added. “If it helps, she seems to be really trying with this ‘reform’ thing.”  
Neal snorted. “Yeah,” he said, “I’ve heard that one before. Emma – you know you don’t have to do this.”  
“I know.”  
“Ok, then this should be really easy for you. You tell her you lost me, tell her you can’t find me. You do that…you’ll never have to see me again.”  
Emma raised her eyebrows. “Oh, I think your not-quite-stepmom already told her we found you,” she said, “And, no offence meant, but I don’t exactly have much of a reason to do you any favours right now. Either you come with me voluntarily, or I drag you, and I’ve got a _lot_ of experience with that.”

“You don’t know what she did to me,” Neal almost begged, “What she’s done to – so many people. What did she even tell you she was doing looking for me?”  
“I know exactly what she is, Neal,” Emma said flatly, “And I’m not saying she’s my favourite person either, but neither are you. Besides…let’s just say I’ve got a bit of sympathy for her position right now.”  
“Her – she abandoned me to another world-”  
“Yeah, well, so did mine, and since you thought _you_ had the right to dictate whether I ever saw her again, I’m claiming the same privilege. Just be grateful you don’t have to go to jail first.”  
“I think I’d take jail,” Neal muttered.

They were halfway back to his apartment before he tried again, Emma’s hand on his arm like a vice.  
“Ok, ok, I shouldn’t have left you like that! I should’ve…I don’t know…maybe not mentioned the watches…”  
“ _You_ called the police on me!” Emma demanded, glaring at him, “If you think that’s going to make me any keener to let you-”  
“She’s a monster – Emma, you said she knew, why the hell are you handing me over to- to that!”  
Emma huffed, “She’s sort of a…I have no idea, but she’s done me a few good turns lately.”  
“You can’t trust her,” Neal warned.  
“I don’t plan on it.”  
They were nearly there now, if there was going to be a chance at all it would have to be now-  
But then they were at the door, and there was no chance left at all, and Neal was breathless. She didn’t see him, at first, nor did he see her. He saw Belle first, the brunette from before, standing with her back to him and her hands on the other woman’s shoulders. And then, he saw her.

He had been expecting, stupidly, for her to look just the same as she had done the last time he had seen her. Scaled and twisted, claws and rotten teeth and like a monster out of a storybook. Or, in some secret part of him he tried not to allow out very often, to be the mother he had known again, bone-weary and ragged and exhausted and mocked by all the world, so the shame at least would make him move again. She wasn’t. She was neat, well-groomed, her greying hair knotted back in a bun at the nape of her neck beneath a hat like something out of an old forties movie, toying with the golden chain about her neck with one hand and looking almost nervous. Then, she looked up, and her face-  
A rush of memory overtook him – the way she had looked when the kids in the village threw stones, this same look on her face, the first day he’d asked why he didn’t have a father the way the other boys did, the way she’d wept when Hordor and his men had cornered them and what they’d threatened to do then, with Bae right there and listening – and he felt abruptly unsteady on his feet.  
“Bae…” Rumpelstiltskin rasped out, her voice hardly more than a whisper, and just like that the next rush of memory hit him, of the fear in her eyes when he’d been drafted, the way she had clung to him, nearly sobbing into his hair that he was so young, so young, too young for any of this. The memory brought up bile – he didn’t want this, didn’t want any of this. That woman was gone, all of this was just an illusion, a trick played by the thing that lurked now behind her eyes. He was here, only because Emma had forced him and – in his mind he was already rewriting it – because he knew, bone-deep, what she’d do if Emma broke a deal with her now. “Thank you,” his mother breathed, pulling away from her friend to turn to Emma, grasping both Emma’s hands in hers. “You- you can’t know what this means.”  
“I have an idea,” Emma said, and Neal followed her gaze to the kid who had been sitting quietly on the bench this whole time. “I…Henry and I are going to grab some lunch,” Emma said awkwardly, “Leave you to it. It…uh…looks like you’ve got a lot to discuss.”  
Rumpelstiltskin nodded, “Of course,” she said, with a faint smile, which faltered as she looked back at Neal, even as Emma bundled the kid – her kid? – out the door, leaving Neal alone with his mother and the other woman, Belle.  
“Let’s get one thing clear,” he said harshly, as soon as Emma and the kid were out of the line of fire, carefully not looking at his mother’s face. “I’m only here because if I hadn’t come, you’d have gone after Emma. So far as I’m concerned, you can get out right now, because the last thing I ever wanted was to see you again.”  
He didn’t need to be looking at her directly to see the way his mother’s face crumpled, or how Belle laid a gentle hand on her back and shot a look at Neal as if he’d just strangled a puppy from over Rumpelstiltskin’s shoulder. That look, more than anything, was what steeled Neal’s resolve. He’d done _nothing_ wrong, and he wasn’t going to be glared at by some girl younger than Emma for not wanting anything to do with the monster walking around in his mother’s skin.

“Bae,” his mother rasped out, “ _Please_ , all I want is a chance. To be heard.”  
“I’m not interested in anything you have to say!” Neal snapped, “Ok, you got Emma to believe this snake-oil you’re trying to sell me, but I know you better than that.”  
“Evidently not,” Belle said, glaring at him and putting a hand on his mother’s shoulder. Neal had known people die for less, in the old world, but Rumpelstiltskin hardly reacted this time – who _was_ this woman?

“Mind telling me what your little sidekick’s doing here?” he asked, keeping his voice hard.  
Rumpelstiltskin looked away for a moment, swallowed, and then. “Bae…this is Belle. My- ah. My girlfriend, actually.” She smiled, a little shyly, as if _this_ would be the thing that made him turn on her after all the crap she’d already pulled. Neal’s first, absurd, thought was that he guessed he knew now why it was things hadn’t worked out with his father.  
“Cool. Great. How old is she, twenty?”

“Twenty-four,” Belle said shortly, folding her arms. In her leather jacket and heavy-duty boots she looked almost like a bodyguard, even at all of five foot two.  
“You’re going out with a twenty-four-year-old biker?” Neal demanded, incredulous. Wasn’t their family screwed up enough already? “And- No, sorry, how did you convince Emma to buy into this? I mean…you’re not exactly good at hiding it, are you? Even over here they tell stories about you.”  
“We have a number of things in common, I suppose,” his mother said roughly, her fingers tightening on Belle’s hand.  
Neal snorted. “She is _nothing_ like you!”  
“How would you know?” Belle asked, frowning at him, “You…you know Emma?”  
“We’ve met.”

His mother swallowed. “Please, Bae. I…I know I’ve made mistakes. But – you must believe me. I want to make up for it. Please. There’s…” she swallowed. “There’s no greater pain than regret.”  
No. Oh, no. She was not going to pull that crap on him. “How about abandonment?” he snapped back.   
“Please,” she repeated, her eyes vast and brown and bright with tears. “Let me make it up to you.”  
“How are you going to do that?” Neal demanded, taking a step forward. He was taller than she was now, and his mother had always been short and slight. He towered over her. “I grew up alone. I grew up without _either_ of my parents because of you, you think you can _fix_ that?”  
“Stop it!” Belle snapped, glaring daggers at him. “Can’t you see-”

He could see. His mother’s teeth were bared, she looked like a feral thing, the same look she’d worn when the village headman had confronted her in the street. He’d been a big man too, six feet, and she’d looked so small that day, so breakable. It wasn’t the same, he told himself sharply, but some of the same sick taste lingered in his mouth as he’d felt that day.  
“No,” his mother said, her voice steady. “I…it’s fine. He’s my son. He won’t hurt me.”  
Neal snorted. “As if I could. And that’s not exactly an answer, is it? How are you supposed to fix what you did to me?”  
Rumpelstiltskin swallowed. “I…I could turn the clock back,” she said tentatively, and it was the tone she had always used to coax him into good behaviour with some treat that they could usually ill-afford. “If you came with us to Storybrooke. There’s magic there. It’d be as if it never happened.”  
Of course. That was always her solution, wasn’t it? Magic away her problems and damn the consequences, or what might get lost along the way.  
“As- I don’t want to be fourteen again! It was bad enough the first time around! You’re offering to…what, take away who I am so you don’t have to deal with the fact that _you fucked up_?”  
“Bae… _please_.” His mother closed her eyes for a moment, her shoulders shaking. “Just…give me a chance. You loved me once.”

Bae snorted. “I once thought you were a good person.”  
“I can be that person again. I’ve changed.” Her expression was pleading. “I’ve come here, to this city, without magic…”  
“And you’re still trying to use it to make up for your mistakes! Still think that it can make it all better.” Neal snorted. “It won’t. You can’t. You have no _idea_ what I’ve lived with. What it is to be abandoned, cast out by your own family. Every night for more years than you could know, I’ve seen it. You, letting me go, choosing all this…this _crap_ over me. Now it’s my turn. Now I’m letting you go.”

“Bae…” It was nearly a whimper, her face crumpling in pain. It made Neal’s stomach twist, and he hated her for it, hated that she could still make him feel this way, that she was trying to manipulate him yet again. Tears had always been her favourite weapon, until she found magic to replace it. “I’m sorry…”  
“I don’t care! I didn’t get closure, so you don’t either. Gotta go.”

 


End file.
